Savinelli De Luxe Milano 622KS Restoration

When this beautiful Italian pot came it to me for a little spiffying, it was already in good condition. There were some areas of heavy scratching and the neon pink putty fills (I hate that stuff) had shrunk and dimpled, but not much other than that. I knew that I wanted to do something about the fills, but one of them sat right on top of the stamping and part of it even dropped down between the uprights (ascenders?) of the "N" in "SAVINELLI".

I considered leaving the fill near the stamping alone, but I just couldn't. I felt that it detracted from the overall look of the pipe too much. So, with a lot of care, I picked out the old putty and refilled it with a mixture of briar shavings and CA. Here are a few photos of the progress:

You'll obviously notice the mottled appearance of the patch. That's because the photos were taken before refinishing and my patch method is to use a combination of briar dust and larger briar particles. The dust gives the patch some body to prevent it from shrinking. The larger particles (the lighter areas in the photo) will sand will provide exposed surfaces that accept stain. The final patch is darker than the surrounding wood, but the stained particles blend it a little. In any case, I think it looks way better than the pink stuff.

Another beautiful job! That fill near the stamping is very well done indeed. How did you manage to avoid the stamping while levelling the fill? It's like some sort of microsurgery!

Thank you, ontariopiper. Microsurgery, indeed! There was no real trick to working around the stamping (I wish there was), except that the patch was under magnification and I worked very, very careful. I had to take a smoke break after that one, because me eyes and fingers were fatigued.